The Sickly Fox

A lengthy walk with the camera and lurcher seemed the order of the day. Some stiff medication precluded driving too far so it was a short hop to a circular riverside walk to give an unfit hunter, an aging lurcher and a 500mm lens some fresh air. Alongside the water meadows, the bare winter blackthorns were alive with foraging finches, buntings and titmice. A blue tit posed atop one shrub, his crest raised angrily at my intrusion. As he whistled the loudest chastisement he could muster, I stole his soul for posterity with the Nikon.

Further along, out in the frost-parched reed beds Ole Frank stood statuesque. The grey heron (or harnser as we call them locally) is the biggest avian predator. He’s partial to a plump pheasant hatchling and I’ve personally photographed such plunder but like the buzzard, he is protected by law from the keepers wrath. The frogs would be dug in deep in this cold so I guessed the reason for the vigil would be the field voles that thrive among the sedges.

Up on the fresh plough of the valley sides a small gaggle of foreigners huddled against the wind. The lurcher paced up and down the track catching their scent on the breeze. Egyptian geese. Strange looking wildfowl and though there are only about 500 breeding pairs in the UK I see them frequently along this stretch of the River Wensum. As I watched them, the lurchers demeanour changed from passive to highly alert. Something was spooking him. I looked about carefully and at first couldn’t understand his concern. He ranged along the track and back to me, ears erect, nostrils quivering. A fearful reaction usually reserved for rats, feral cats or foxes.

We walked on and, behind a cattle gate, I saw the rufus bundle lying amongst the blackthorn tangle. Raising the zoom lens to catch it’s inevitable flight, I found myself looking into a dark, pathetic eye. The fox didn’t move. A blink told me it was still alive. As we pressed towards it, the beast attempted to move but was too weak to draw from the bush. I had no idea what what wrong with it. I heeled in the lurcher, who was skulking like a hyena. Two hunters, the fox and I, stood six feet apart staring at each other. His eyes bore not the look of resignation, more a look of expectation. I could only stand there angry and frustrated. With no gun to hand to put an end to the creatures obvious misery, I looked up and down the public footpath. Had I been deep in-country, the outcome here might have been different. Despite the fact that I had a natural killer at my heel, I couldn’t risk letting the lurcher despatch the fox because of a crass, bastard law dreamed up by a bunch of urban politicians who will never be faced with such a situation. One credible witness, misinterpreting the scene, could see my dog destroyed and me prosecuted for cruelty.

So I had to do something more barbaric and inhumane. I had to walk away and leave the pathetic creature. With -2C forecast here tonight .. a frightful death almost guaranteed. That stare will haunt me for months to come. A stare that demanded a merciful resolution that the dog could have granted but was denied by those who know nothing about the real way of the wild.